Demolition Mafia

In New York City when a building goes up, they usually have to use a demolition company to take down the old buildings.  One of the keys to controlling the construction business is to control the trucking of materials.  The disposal of demolition and construction waste is a huge business in New York.   If a company wanted to dispose of the material legitimately, they would have to have it hauled very far from from New York City.  

The Mafia families have no problem with this.  They find a large piece of land that they can use as a dump and they start bringing in the trucks.  The more loads, the more they make.  If they had to haul the waste far away, it would cut into their profit.

The Gambinos had one dump site in an old rail yard in the Bronx where they brought in load after load of waste.

The Lucchese family found a landowner who owned land in Pennsylvania just 80 miles from the city who let them dump there.  They told them they were dumping clean waste. What they were doing was filling up a large impression with junk and covering it with dirt.  This dump brought in over $30k a week to the Lucchese family while it was open.

When I was in New York I went with Eddie Garafola to a dump site in New Jersey where he had trucks coming in, dumping, and a bulldozer covering the waste with dirt.  It was in some nice New Jersey swamplands.  I also know that they were paid on other occasions to take concrete to be recycled, and instead they just dumped it.  

They did it at every project including Shea Stadium and the World Trade Center site.

Eddie Garofalo Sr and his brother Manny were experts in this field.  The New York authorities called them the James brothers of the carting industry.  

Eddie G Sr. had demolished four buildings in Times Square before he was gunned down in front of his home by some Gambinos.  The State was looking into his activities just before he was murdered.

The Lucchese Family also had another dump with the Genovese family in Westchester County that was a huge money maker.  They turned it into a toxic waste swamp, the neighborhood started to complain and the State came in and seized trucks.  

They would end up murdering their guy Mike Salerno, but his illegal dumps were Lucchese owned property. That family did not care about anyone’s family. They felt that anything a wiseguy in their family owned or was working was Lucchese family property.

When Paulie Vario of Goodfellas fame died the new bosses Vic Amuso and Gaspipe Casso wanted to take his property for their own.  Never mind that Paulie had been earning his whole life, even before these men were inducted into the family.  

It is a good thing that Gaspipe’s front man took his home in Mill Basin after he went away.

Dumping waste is a huge business with a lot of cash at stake. The Mafia will always be in it, as long as there are corners to cut and cash to be made.